Meanwhile, if you haven't already, you must also read Brave New World – JG Ballard says it's more prophetic than 1984 and few would argue that its influence is huge. Huxley's anti-utopia also displays plenty of the obsessions that would lead him to The Doors Of Perception – particularly in the form of the drug Soma.

It's also well worth looking at Island – a late novel marking the culmination of Huxley's philosophical and psychotropic investigations.

Acid Dreams by Martin A Lee gives a good idea of the influence of Huxley's ideas. It's a social history of LSD, the 1960s counterculture and the CIA's strange foray into psychedelic experimentation.

There's also Storming Heaven: LSD And The American Dream by Jay Stevens, another history of LSD following the drug from Albert Hofman's laboratory to Timothy Leary's college to Ken Kesey's bus and then across the world.

Huxley, had a lovely, very posh voice, as evidenced by this BBC interview from 1958 – which is also notable for, among other things, Huxley's claim to be an essayist who happens to write novels and a discussion of Brave New World and LSD.

Finally, I find it impossible to to resist posting this amusing video of soldiers taking LSD ("One hour and 10 minutes after taking the drug, with one man climbing a tree to feed the birds, the troop commander gave up … ")

Anything else we should be looking at? Or any books we should hunt out? Please post suggestions in the comments below …o